


elevatorture

by jelly_spine



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Crossdressing, M/M, Romance, elevator to another world, marks friends are assholes lmao, once again markhyucks group of friends consists of nct 127
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 10:46:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9545039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelly_spine/pseuds/jelly_spine
Summary: Mark gets played big time.(Or, Jaehyun has a dumb idea and Mark goes along with it.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> the title is a big ugly pun please forgive me  
> based on instructions i found on how to get 'to another world by elevator'

Mark keeps his eyes firmly on the postcard, fat red letter spelling out ‘ _Grüße aus Berlin!_ ’ printed over a picture of the Brandenburg Gate. He tries his best to ignore all that is not the rectangle of paper in his trembling hands and for a few seconds succeeds, getting lost in speculations on how the hell that capital b-looking letter is supposed to be pronounced. Soon enough, however, the fragile comfort of distraction is taken from him as the elevator jolts to a stop on the fifth floor.

Call him superstitious, but Mark thinks there must be something truly wrong with this cruel world when the doors open with a muted hiss, like heavy silver curtains, to reveal the exact thing—person—he hoped so feverishly not to see: Mark only sees the girl’s shadow and her spanking white sneakers over the edges of the postcard as she steps into the cage, her stride light, graceful.

‘Do not _speak to her_ ,’ Jaehyun’s warning rings in Mark’s head as a cry would in a canyon. ‘Do not _look at her. If you do, she may decide to keep you to herself._ ’

Panicky hot, sticky sweat crawls its way down along the bumps of Mark’s spine. The terror in the teenager’s stomach peaks when the girl, merely two metres away, lets out a little cough and shifts her weight from one dainty foot to the other, startling him half-dead. Pressing himself further against the wall furthest from her, Mark obscures her from his vision with the postcard as he lifts his gaze and reaches for the first floor’s button with a shaky hand.

 

 

 

At the very second Jaehyun opened his mouth, letting out the consecutive _I_ and _dare_ and _you_ , a small part of Mark knew this wasn’t going to end well. Damn him, he ended up agreeing anyway after only two attempts at persuasion from Jaehyun’s part. “This isn’t going to be like the time you wanted to summon a demon, is it?” he laughed as Jaehyun slapped a hand onto his shoulder with a pleased smile which made Mark regret his pliability—but just the tiniest bit.

Jaehyun dismissed the teenager’s remark on their latest project, laughing. “No, no. One of my buddies tried this. He said it was awesome,” he replied.

“But, um,” Mark voiced out, already contemplating what his friend with friends equally hopelessly attracted to supernatural things was thinking of, “what’s the dare?”

If possible, Jaehyun’s grin stretched even wider. “You ever heard of that elevator game?” he asked.

“The—The ride to another world?” Mark clarified, just in case the other was talking about a game of a far less frightening nature. Already he felt an invisible loop of horror tightening around his neck, but he knew there was nothing keeping him from refusing except Jaehyun’s perseverance and his own will to be a good sport.

“Yeah, that one. Basically you have to enter the elevator on the first floor, then press the button to the fourth floor. Once there you don’t get out and go down to the second floor. Then—would you like me to write the instructions down for you?”

Mark nodded, glad that Jaehyun had understood there was no way he would have remembered all the steps by heart. Learning his friends’ birthdays by heart was already hard enough. “It would be a nice last act of kindness before my death.”

The teenager’s comment drew a loud laugh out of Jaehyun, who got up immediately to hunt down a pen and a piece of paper. Mark observed him reading the instructions off his phone’s screen, then jotting them down on the back of a postcard from Germany, right next to ‘Lots of love from auntie Seungjoo!’

Not long after Jaehyun had handed Mark the postcard they made their way out of Jaehyun’s apartment, down the hall and to the first floor of the building. Mark eyed the blue ring of light around the call button, feeling more on the edge than he would have admitted.

“I’ll tell your mom you escaped to Alaska if you don’t come back,” Jaehyun offered in sloppy assurance, a Cheshire cat’s grin pulling at his lips. Mark’s stomach sank a tiny bit further in horror, as did his shoulder under the other’s heavy palm pushing him towards the elevator’s doors.

With a last unsure look at his friend Mark pressed the button and stepped into the cage. The very last thing he saw before he embarked on what he now is pretty sure is his last elevator ride in this world and life was Jaehyun’s smiling face and the cheery little wave of his hand.

After going through the first six of seven steps, after making a stop at the fourth, second, sixth, second, tenth and fifth floor but never getting out of the elevator, to say that Mark is terrified would be an understatement. Rigid all the way to the tips of his ears, he reads the instructions off the postcard time after time in hopes of finding an advice on how to come out of this alive: ‘ _Once you arrive to the fifth floor a young woman may enter the elevator. You are not to acknowledge her presence. Press the button to the first floor. If the elevator starts ascending to the tenth floor you may proceed. If it descends to the first floor exit as soon as the doors open.’_

The girl moves a mere centimetre to the left. Mark only barely bites back a whimper, shuddering violently. He doesn’t notice her cancelling the order to the first floor and pressing the tenth floor’s button, entirely focused on keeping himself from crying as he is. The doors close and the elevator starts to ascend. The teenage boy’s shoulders are so tense they almost touch his ears, his stomach is pulled in as close to his spine as possible.

The doors open to reveal a dark, empty hallway, eerie in its silence, as if the world—whether Mark’s own or another dimension entirely, he doesn’t know—were holding its breath in unison with the boy still pinned against the wall of the elevator by terror. ‘ _You may choose to exit the elevator or stay inside. If you exit the girl will ask you where you’re going. Do not answer her. If you choose to stay inside, however, press the button to the first floor. Once there exit and do not look back.’_ Already craving the safety of his own home like never before, Mark goes for the second option and presses the first floor’s button. He resents agreeing to try out this foolish idea of Jaehyun’s. He upbraids himself in his head: he will have to learn how to say no to others when they request to copy his Maths homework, when they ask him to buy them food, or most importantly, when they prompt him to go through such satanic rituals.

Mark’s still insulting himself and his good will in his head when suddenly the girl clears her throat, twice, and utters, “Why didn’t you get out on the tenth floor?”

That she would open her mouth even if Mark decided to stay in the elevator was most certainly not mentioned on the postcard—but then again, neither was the fact that her voice would have a painfully familiar sing-song, nasal quality. The card falls from Mark’s sweaty grasp as he whips his head around.

_“Donghyuck?”_

 

 

 

On a day not so long ago Mark realised his affection for Donghyuck was a tad bit different from the love he had for his other friends. In a way he had always held the knowledge somewhere deep inside him, but it didn’t surface before Donghyuck sought him out after that day’s last lesson and asked if he would mind being walked to the bus stop. Mark, of course, didn’t disapprove. Neither did he object when the other teenager insisted on walking arm in arm. They had to let go of each other, however, when they saw the bus coming to the stop, which was still some distance away.

Both broke out into a sprint, their backpacks’ straps falling off their shoulders and the rubber soles of their sneakers thudding against the pavement. “Why are you running?” Mark took his attention off making it onto the bus for long enough to holler. “You aren’t even taking this bus!”

Donghyuck let out a brilliant smile and answered in a laughter-ridden voice, “Out of solidarity!”

Not only was Donghyuck absolutely stunning when he came to a halt at the stop, his hair released from the wind’s fingers falling over his eyes and his shoulders rising and falling rapidly, but he had managed to shed some light on Mark’s innermost feelings, as if his breathless grin were a flashlight. As the bus drove away, taking Mark with it, his gaze lingered on the other teenager, who waved at him before turning to go home.

It was a fleeting moment, over as fast as it came, but it was enough to make Mark realise he didn’t wish to kiss daft grins off Youngho’s lips, hold Taeil by the waist or simply look at Yuta for the rest of the eternity—not from one of his other friends he wanted those things, except from Donghyuck.

The bus stopped at a red light. “Shit, dude,” Mark mumbled to himself, making a kid turn around to look at him, “you’re whipped.”

 

 

 

 

If he weren’t so dismayed Mark would think Donghyuck looks unbearably attractive in a long dark wig and a puffy dress. The boy lifts his hand in a greeting and smiles a devious smile. “You should’ve seen yourself,” he comments, leaning back against the wall. He does a little imitation of the other’s expression mere minutes ago, then breaks it off with a high-pitched laugh.

Mark is still not over the shock. Trembling with a confusing mix of terror, anger and relief, he pinches the bridge of his nose, keeping tears behind his shut eyelids with such effort he almost sees stars. “Was this your idea?” he grumbles.

“Actually,” Donghyuck starts in a matter-of-fact way. Despite a delicate note of worry which has snuck into his voice, his amusement persists, “you’ll be surprised to find out that it was Taeil who suggested this to Jaehyun.”

And that’s when Mark opens his eyes. Tears, released from their dam, roll over his cheeks. Some of them find their way to his mouth and he pokes his tongue out to lick them away from his upper lip, tasting salt and frustration, but most of all relief at this whole thing just being a dumb joke his friends probably cooked up at Doyoung’s place last Thursday when Mark was in the bathroom or somewhere else outside hearing range.

Donghyuck seems finally attained by the full force of worry. It only takes one step for him to be right there, his hands on the other’s shoulders and his gentle, inquiring, worried eyes searching his face as if looking for some switch to close his tear ducts. “Mark—oh god, I didn’t mean to make you cry. We didn’t mean to scare you like that.”

“I—I know,” Mark hiccups, feeling dumb and childish. He feels the other’s hands making their way to his neck and from there to his cheeks, leaving trails of warmth onto Mark’s skin. “I’m sorry, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck looks on the verge of making some very important decision. His eyes have gone grave and calculating. “No, _I’m_ so sorry, _so_ sorry. I hate to see you cry.”

Mark hates to see and hear and feel himself crying, too, but he simply can’t stop. Luckily Donghyuck does it for him by enveloping him into a slightly-too-tight hug. Though his senses are clouded Mark finds that the other teenager has made the effort to dab some sweet perfume onto his neck, and feels a fledgling of a smile tickling at the corners of his mouth.

“’S okay?” Donghyuck pulls away to make sure.

Mark blinks tears out of his eyes and nods shyly. There’s only so long he can stay angry at the other boy, even after the nasty prank the other pulled on him. All it takes to soothe the anger is a curt question Donghyuck doesn’t need to explain for the other to understand, and Mark’s smitten heart is driven into a love-struck gallop.

Donghyuck kisses Mark’s tears away, his lips gentle as anything. But there’s still one last step separating them from an undefined future together; Donghyuck could easily pull away, casually tuck a strand of long hair behind his ear with a smile and assert that they’re just friends. Mark could laugh and echo, “ _Yeah, just friends.”_

But Donghyuck doesn’t.

Making the decision he was contemplating earlier, Donghyuck leans forwards and pushes the soft flesh of his lips against Mark’s. Once he’s stayed there for a few sweet seconds he licks gently at the other boy’s bottom lip and grants himself access beyond it. Close enough to smell Donghyuck’s characteristic scent from under the perfume and with the other’s wig’s pigtails tickling at his cheeks, Mark isn’t in his right mind enough to attribute the spinning of his world to the movement of the descent of the elevator instead of the sheer bliss of having Donghyuck pressed up against him.

The elevator comes to a stop on the first floor and the doors slide open. Standing there, in the spot where Mark left him, is Jaehyun. “I don’t recall writing down in the instructions to suck faces with Donghyuck,” he remarks.

Mark only opens his eyes halfway to give Jaehyun a dismissing glance. He releases his grip on the front of Donghyuck’s dress he’ll have to tell the other boy to wear more often from now on, and waves a hand at his friend. “This is out of this world enough,” he says, only to have Donghyuck laughing against his lips.

And it’s true, in a way: through that elevator trip he hated but ultimately found he needed he’s transitioned into a world where Donghyuck is safely in his arms—and the other boy’s wearing a dress. Mark sure as hell isn’t complaining.


End file.
